Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Review

Let me preface this by saying I love Castlevania. I have lived there since the 80′s and it has been a charming place…up until now. However, I feel with the shadow of gentrification creeping over those old halls, that the last great 2D Castlevania (Symphony of the Night) was amazing. I’ve since the initial release of that title been back tracking and playing quite a bunch of the original Castlevanias. The handheld versions on the Nintendo DS were okay, but too much newfangled stuff for my old blood. When Castlevania went 3D I was excited for the new direction, sure the Nintendo 64 version was wacky and the PS2 and Xbox versions were like Devil May Cry and Monster Rancher, but I had faith that this series had staying power.

When Konami released the new 2D Castlevania, I was excited..until I played it. It did have it’s moments but it was really just a copy paste grind fest…of despair. At E3 when Konami revealed Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, I initially didn’t like it. However, after talking to Amel (Champ Mountain,co-host) and seeing that Kojima worked on it, I was persuaded into buying it.

Then I saw it, the hipsters moving into Castlevania.

I wonder what Kojima has in store..

A fair warning: This game is a reboot, therefore it won’t make sense in the Castlevania storyline. The story is simple; there’s evil afoot, your wife is dead, and Gabriel Belmont needs to tear shit up. Your targets are the Lords of Shadow, your objective is to kill them, steal their powers and then make things right. Along the way you find out some disturbing things about yourself, but you fortunately do not take this quest alone. You’re joined by nerd icon Patrick Steward as an NPC, but I won’t say any more because I don’t to ruin the story.

Now that you know why you’re whipping shit, Let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this game.

Won't be doing any of this until near the end of disc 1

First off, the games visuals are excellent. The character models are impressive, the monsters really look believable, and most of the NPC’s don’t look that bad either. The stage designs are amazing. This game did an great job of making the world of Castlevania come to life. You can feel tension in some areas, while feeling nothing but despair in others. Monsters and your blood splatter,the effects on attacks look slick and even the the standard attacks hitting the floor look fabulous.

Now, the downside to this is that if you’re using magic with all the effects on the hit it is hard to tell when the monster is launching it’s counter attack. Also, some unblockable attacks are sometimes hard to spot if you’re really in a groove. Boss fights are cool for the intro and the cut scenes, however you’re sometimes sadly looking at the same animations for the same set of creatures.

The music is strangely absent. It usually keys up when something happens or they play a battle theme, but for the most part you’re adventuring in silence with environmental sounds. The wild life has it’s own distinctive sounds which creates some tense moments. The voice acting is helped out with having Professor X on board, but there are however some awkward accents. The monster noises are unique and they don’t recycle sounds in later levels. I also heard a subtle Metal Gear reference made in the game’s soundtrack. When I heard it I had the biggest smile on my face.

Is Alucard in the game?

Gameplay is the easy part. It’s the standard hack and slash with some platforming and some puzzle elements thrown in. There’s quick time events and some button mashing involved as well, so have those thumbs ready.

Nope. I wonder if Gaga is in this post.

When you turn a critical eye on this game, it barely rises above your average beat-em-up action game. The plot itself is interesting, but the way it’s paced is horrid. For example, you get an information dump towards the end, a twist which is sort of predictable by about Chapter 4. More problems with the game stem from the jittery controls and horrid camera. There were many deaths that could have been avoided if I could’ve just rotated the camera.

Where the hipsters I mentioned before come in, it seems like they made this game accessible to everyone, but at the cost of some standards. Every button on the controller is used, even the start and the back buttons. This sounds good right? The down side is that there is NO way to manipulate the camera. This hurts the platforming because jumps are missed due to how naughty the camera is. Sometimes, it screws with the direction you’re moving. Sometimes, it switches so extremely fast that up magically becomes left somehow and you end up running to your death. This affects combat because there’s no way to turn the camera around once enemies get behind you. So you’re left attacking the screen hoping the enemies aren’t doing anything that will do a ton of damage.

The battle themes kind of get tuned out after a while, so they aren’t the majority of the sound problems. The voice acting is questionable at times, but like the themes, it isn’t a big deal. There are some bugs in this game however, like getting stuck in rocks, stairs or banisters from time to time. Occasionally, you’ll see NPC’s get stuck in rocks in cut scenes in some cases. So be ready for that. The controls can also be problematic, especially when platforming, and sometimes your character just will not respond until you move in a way that seemingly pleases the old gods. There are some puzzles and platforming elements that require some tighter controls as well. On the flip side, the controls aren’t difficult to adjust to and once you learn the combos they come out fairly simple. There are also some padded segments of the game that you can simply do without,such as finding your stolen relics. If they offered multiple paths to beat a single level then maybe it would add a twist, as it stands they just seem like filler.

Moaaar

The breakdown summary:

Graphics: Bosses look great,stages look great,characters look great. Downside is that Gabe always looks like he’s squinting, his beard looks terrible in certain scenes, sometimes there may be too much of one color on the screen in some areas.. 8/ 10

Gameplay: The game is a standard beat-em-up adventure action game that borrows from a few other classic titles. The bosses may look amazing but for the most part they don’t get that many different attacks. I think it’s determined by body/species type but if you can kill a large werewolf you can kill the Lycan-King and it goes down the line like that. Attack wise, the bosses get one sort of uber-attack but that’s about it for their diversity. The platforming sections aren’t bad either, it’s just the controls that make them tough and the camera that conspires against you. The puzzles aren’t too hard, as you can brute force most of them or just get the answer if you’re impatient. Combat isn’t bad, but that doesn’t mean you’d want to fight all the time. With a bit more depth, it would seem less repetitive.. 5/10

Sound: Everything is pretty good except the weird inconsistent accents throughout the voice acting job. 7/10

Replay: I’d say if you want to go through the game to collect all the stuff you’ve missed, then by all means do it, you can miss plenty on one play through due to lack of skill. If you backtrack well enough, then you can get it all in one run. Maybe if you want to use the stuff you unlock to whup some more stuff then sure, but other than that the replay on this one is low. 4/10

Overall: This game is a good break from the other titles you maybe playing (my case Forza 3, Super Street Fighter 4 and Halo: Reach). If this game was pushed back a little to correct some of those problems then I know this game would be way better than what it is. It’s a solid game that’s barely above average. Even though it’s better than a majority of the crap that’s released in the genre, compared to the higher end of the spectrum it struggles to stack up where it counts. 6/10

LOL I'm in this post.

Castlevania rating: This game isn’t Castlevania, there’s a few castles in the game you go into in order to bust up the monsters inside but there’s no central Castlevania. It’s a reboot so you to temper your expectations accordingly, however it just doesn’t feel like Castlevania. You don’t see any vampires until nearly the end of disc one. Where have all the old citizens of Castlevania gone? Where is Medusa? She moved out a few years ago. Where are my frog/reptile people? They were evicted. Dracula wasn’t even present in this game until the end. The only OG sub weapons that make the game are the holy water and knife/dagger. Even the Vampire Killer has a new look and feel. It’s feels as if you tried to swing by the old neighborhood and there’s a Starbucks on the corner where you favorite corner store used to be. It’s a strange feeling, I spent most of my gameplay time looking forward getting to the actual castle but there was none.

Maybe that’s a metaphor for life. The video at the top is a metaphor for the game. Grade-3 hearts and the gem sub weapon.